Race & Ethnicity: Effects on Life

Essay by CronyCollege, UndergraduateA+, March 2007

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Ethnicity and race has had a big influence on peoples' every day life choices. In some way or another, most people will be judged according to their color of their skin or their ethnic background. We live in a society full of different races and cultures affecting the way we interact with each other, as well as influencing our views on equality and differences among the many different races in our society. Often influential media groups and social standards shape our beliefs, also affecting how we interact with cultures different from our own, and how various groups interact with each other. Race and ethnicity may be defined as a type of grouping or classification based on a persons origin of birth and includes their racial appearance, language, religion and culture. Ethnicity can be defined as a social construction that indicates identification with a particular group who share common cultural traits, such as language, religion and traditions.

Terms like ethnocentrism, racism, stereotyping, and ethnicity can affect our health status, our economical status, and just basically our status in society. Race defines who we are, and in some cases it is the root of discrimination problems. Individuals dislike other people because they do not like how they are; whether it is physically or the way they think and act. We look at people and experiences through race and culture. I was raised with family that had introverted personalities. This is one of the reasons why my personality is also like that. I grew up recognizing differences in races and ethnicity and it never affected my way of being, I simply saw everyone the same, with the same potential and equal opportunity. I have been taught by the spoken and unspoken ways of my parents, teachers, friends; I have simply grown...